Titan
by Isengard Publishing Company
Summary: One year after the end of Leviathan. Deryn Sharp is stuck working a desk job with the Zoological Society while Alek gets to be out on expeditions. Then the 11th Doctor shows up, alone and running. Stuff happens, involving Cybermen and fabricated beasties. Might be kind of long, depends on whether I like where its going.
1. Chapter 1

Deryn Sharp sighed and shuffled the stack of paperwork on her desk. She folded up her completed letter to Dr. Highmore, stuck it neatly in an envelope, and sealed it. She placed it in the outgoing mail tray on the corner of her desk. A Society messenger beastie would come pick it up soon enough.

Deryn sighed again. She didn't _want _a desk of her own. She wanted to go out in the field, to hang from a Huxley airbeast, to feel the wind in her hair like she had when she was aboard the _Leviathan. _She hadn't joined the Zoological Society for paperwork. And having to deliver letters via fabricated birds or rodents seemed to be a waste of time when a message lizard could deliver a message in your voice. But the insistence on written messages was just another custom when dealing with high-ranking members of the Zoological Society.

A year ago, everything had seemed so bright, so hopeful. The attack on Goliath had been stopped. The United States had joined the war against the Clankers, and so had the Ottoman Empire. Alek had even given up his right to the emperor's throne to stay with her at the Zoological Society.

But she barely saw him anymore. He was always out in the field, discovering new species to be made into fabricated beasties. While she was stuck behind a desk in this buggered office! And all because she was a girl! She had thought that the Zoological Society would be a place where her gender wouldn't get in the way of her work. It certainly didn't for Dr. Barlow.

But the Zoological Society boffins had decided that field work was unfit for a lady. Even a lady who had successfully disguised herself as a boy for so long. If only she hadn't dropped her Dylan alias, she could be with Alek, out on his wonderful expeditions. But in the excitement of her new job, she had made the mistake of dropping her Dylan disguise to finally be Deryn. After all, since the Germans had the United States and Ottomans to deal with, along with the threat of Goliath, they surely wouldn't bother making her into a propaganda case like Dr. Barlow had said they would. But admitting her identity had cost her a promising life of adventure.

As for the war, it was still dragging on. For a while, it looked like the Darwinist's new allies could finally help put a sop to the conflict. But the after a haphazard retreat from the French and Russian war fronts, the Clankers had dug in at the borders of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They refused to surrender, staving off attack after attack. The loss of lives on both sides continued to increase. Each side had desperately come up with deadly new weapons. And as for Goliath, after several months with no massively destructive strike, the Germans had realized Goliath was an empty threat. The war had dragged on, with barely any more ground gained by the Allies for months.

The only reason she stayed here in London was Alek's monthly visits. He was supposed to arrive back in London today, as a matter of fact. He would only be able to stay for a few days however, before he left again for Africa or some other exciting place.

Deryn sighed a third time. Africa! What she would give to be able to see the world again, as she had when she was still Midshipman Dylan Sharp aboard the _Leviathan._ Now she couldn't even go back to _Leviathan. _Rejoining the Air Service would be impossible as a girl. Her skill and experience wouldn't even be taken into account. And even if she got in, none of the other middies would be able to look at her the same.

Yes, there was no point thinking about the air. But how she missed it! The wind in her hair, the feeling of the airbeast under her feet. Her time in the Air Service had been fraught with danger and death, but she couldn't stop remembering it. Whenever she had a moment to herself, Deryn's mind would flash back to her life on the _Leviathan. _Everything had been so much more exciting, the future so bright….

Deryn shook off her thoughts of the past. What was done was done. And besides, she had Alek to look forward to as soon as she finished her paperwork for Dr. Barlow. It was all mundane, boring stuff, such as requisitioning supplies and funding for the Society's new experiments and expeditions. Instead of being Dr. Barlow's traveling assistant, she ended up doing her paperwork! The thought drove her mad! This whole bloody barking job drove her mad!

_Calm down, _Deryn told herself. _You don't want to be in a bad mood when Alek comes. You only see him a few days each month._

Deryn, focused back on the task at hand, began the tedious process of filling out the requisition forms. But no sooner had she turned her full attention to her work, she was distracted by a draft from the open window, accompanied by a very curious noise.

It was unlike any other noise she had ever heard. It didn't sound as if it could come from a fabricated beastie. It rose and fell, with a strange, unearthly quality. It sounded like maybe it came from a Clanker electrical device. Driven by curiosity, Deryn went to look out of the window.

She looked out at the London alleyway. Opposite her window was another building belonging to the Zoological Society, a laboratory of some sort she believed. She had never been in, it was restricted to only the boffins and fabricators.

She looked down at the alley. Right away, she saw something different. A large blue box stood in the alley, where there hadn't been anything this morning. It didn't have the flowing, natural contours of fabricated wood, it looked had the sharp right angles of something built with wood planks. She squinted at the sign on the front.

"Police public call box?" She said out loud. What was that? Constables were usually out patrolling the streets on tigeresques, but Deryn had never seen one carrying a telephone. The sign was lit from behind, not with the gentle radiance of glowworms, but with unnatural electric lights. The whole 'police box' seemed strange, not the kind of thing to be standing around in Darwinist London. It looked like the kind of ramshackle thing a Monkey Luddite might build, someone who was afraid of fabricated technology.

The door to the box creaked open. A man stepped out into the sunlight. He was wearing a tweed jacket and bow tie. Deryn snorted. Who thought of wearing a tweed jacket with a bow tie? Then she stopped herself. She was starting to act like the upper-class boffins who infuriated her so much. She turned her attention back to the man.

He was studying his surroundings, and appeared to be muttering to himself. He took a metal cylinder out of his pocket. Making sure no one observed him, the strange man began waving the cylinder around as if it was a conductor's baton. The end glowed green and an irritating buzzing sound reached Deryn's ears. The strange man appeared to study the cylinder, still talking to himself.

Deryn frowned. All this seemed more and more suspicious. She didn't know who this man was, but his suspicious behavior and lack of Darwinist technology made her think that he could be a Clanker agent. Perhaps he was a German spy or saboteur. Then a thought occurred to her. If this man was a Clanker agent, and she was the one who exposed him, then the Zoological Society would be unable to keep overlooking her and keeping her in an office. She could sail the skies again!

As these thoughts occurred to her, she kept watching the suspicious man. But as she kept watching, he seemed to realize she was there. He spun around and locked eyes with Deryn. She gave a start and pulled her head back inside her office.

She shook her head. Those piercing green eyes had seemed to look right into her. Now the man knew that someone was onto him. She smiled a bit. That sneaky Clanker would soon get what was coming to him.

But Deryn knew she shouldn't go after him alone. Alek was going to meet her in about an hour right outside the Zoological Society building. He would be so put out if she went off to do something exciting without him, never mind how he was off on expeditions most of the time. And besides, if the man really turned out to be a Clanker spy, she would be better off facing him with Alek at her side.

Deryn hurried back to her desk and put away the stack of papers. She took her coat down from its hook on the wall and put it on, buttoning it up as she cleared her office. She grinned. It looked like those boring requisition papers would just have to wait until another time. Midshipman Deryn Sharp was going on a mission.


	2. Chapter 2

Deryn hurried down the hall to the reception area of the Zoological Society. The whole building was a display of opulent excess, full of marble pillars and oil paintings of famous scientists. The halls were lit with lamps that were powered by some sort of fabricated firefly, similar to the glowworms they had used on the _Leviathan. _

Deryn hurried past the large desk in the lobby, barely stopping to reply the greeting of the clerks behind the desk. She raced past the huge bronze statue of Charles Darwin on its gold-veined marble pedestal. She had memorized the inscription on the pedestal as she passed it every day.

_We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it. –Charles Darwin. _In Deryn's mind, it perfectly showed the way in which the Zoological Society did things. People and their differing opinions were ignored, and problems were approached with nothing less than cold, unwavering reason.

Deryn pushed out through the doors of the building, into the bright daylight. Alek should be arriving by carriage at any moment, and she didn't want to be waiting around. The suspicious man outside her window had been hanging around in the square outside of the Zoological Society. He looked to be waiting for something. But now he appeared to be getting ready to leave, nothing having presented itself to him. It was going to be close, and she could only hope Alek arrived before the strange man departed.

As if her prayers had been heard, a large black carriage appeared in the square, being pulled by a pair of equinesques. The doors were decorated with the Zoological Society crest. Deryn hurried to the carriage as fast as she could without drawing attention from the passerby around her. She dodged around the stamping equinesques as they snorted at her.

Before Alek had a chance to open the carriage door, she had wrenched it open, and unceremoniously pulled him by his collar out onto the cobbled square. He protested, but before he could finish a single sentence, Deryn had begun to explain the situation, glancing at the odd stranger every few seconds. He appeared to be getting ready to depart.

Alek blinked at her. "_Entschuldigung, _Deryn, but I don't think I caught much of that. Could you maybe talk a bit slower?'

Deryn just shook her head at him. "That man looks like he's going to leave any moment. No time for that!" Then she paused for a moment.

"And Alek? One more thing." She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss. "Welcome back to London. I've missed you."

Then she grabbed firmly hold of his hand and began to run. The man on the other side of the square, turned and looked straight at her. He gave a small smile, as if to say, "_Catch me if you can._" Then he too was off hurrying down a small street. The chase was on.

Alek was running under his own steam now, resigned to the fact that Deryn was going on one of her little 'missions.' Together they raced after the stranger, just managing to stay in sight of him. Despite his rather unintimidating appearance, the man could _run. _They barely managed to stay in sight of him. They raced down twisting alleys, dodged around produce stalls, weaved through lanes of omnibuses pulled by mammothines. Just overhead, messenger terns darted to and fro, carrying letters and documents. Delivery beasts wove underfoot, packages strapped to their backs. At market stalls, fabricated birds called out products and prices at passing civilians. Everywhere, fabricated beasts could be seen perching, flying, scurrying, walking and racing.

Deryn grinned. The man couldn't shake them. Once this spy was caught, the Society would have no way of justifying their decision to keep her in London. Beside her, Alek was grumbling about the ridiculousness of this escapade, but she paid him no mind. This was her personal mission, and she would be the one to turn the spy in.

Up ahead, the man in the tweed jacket turned into a narrow alley. He had his little metal cylinder out, and it was making that irritating buzzing noise. Deryn had no idea what it was supposed to do, but it didn't appear to have any visible effects.

Alek and Deryn rounded the corner, breathing heavily. The alleyway was a dead end. Their quarry had no escape route this time. But he didn't appear worried. The stranger was pointed his cylinder at a door, and it was buzzing and emitting a green light from the end. The door clicked, and slowly swung open. Both Alek and Deryn were momentarily speechless.

Deryn thought _if the Clankers have this technology, who knows what they could do with it?_ The war had been raging for almost a year now. How much could the Clankers have done in that time? If doors were no obstacle, Clanker spies could easily infiltrate into any building. This was very bad indeed.

Meanwhile, the man in the tweed suit showed no inclination to flee. He leaned against the wall of the alley.

"Now, what's your big rush, you two? Why are you so intent on catching me?" the man said in a perfect British accent. _Okay, maybe he isn't German, _Deryn thought to herself.

Alek looked a little sheepish. "My apologies, sir, but I don't really know. Deryn dragged me with her, I didn't really catch her explanation."

The strange man looked at her. "So you're Deryn? Nice name, that. Certainly not a name from 1914 London…" the man seemed to be talking to himself. "Excuse me, but could you tell me what year it is? I didn't really have time to figure that out when I arrived."

Alek looked at the stranger, a bit confused. "Sir, it _is _1914. November 1914."

The man looked a little off-put. "So this isn't London? Sure looks like London to me."

Alek looked even more confused. "This _is _London, sir."

The strange man looked at him. "Are you sure this is 1914? Doesn't seem like 1914. Come to think of it, those animals that were in the market don't seem much like 1914 either. Got to be from 2514, at least."

"This _is _1914." Both Alek and Deryn said it this time. Deryn was a little confused. 2514? This man didn't seemed like a Clanker spy. He seemed like someone who had gone off the deep end.

The man was looking very concerned. "Are you certain this is 1914? Those animals aren't supposed to be invented until 2514. But you're right… the air seems like 1914…" said the man to himself, sniffing at the air. "Except…." He turned towards them. "Why is there no smog? The air should be full of smog, I mean, really, you people burn coal for everything."

Deryn looked at the odd man. He hardly seemed threatening now, he appeared to be hopelessly lost and confused. "Well, my da told me about how the air used to be full of smog, years ago. But when Darwin found how to create new life threads… we just didn't need coal for anything anymore. Though in Germany and Austria the air is just rotten with smoke, or so I hear from Alek."

The man sighed and put his head in his hands. "Darwin, life threads… oh, I should have realized sooner! This isn't normal London at all! I must be in some sort of offshoot timeline."

Deryn had no idea what he was talking about. Alek seemed slightly uncomfortable at the man's evident insanity. He motioned to her that they should leave.

The odd man looked at Deryn. "Quickly! Tell me everything!"

Deryn began backing away from the man. "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't think you were the person I thought you were. I'm sure that you'll be fine, and because of this, I'm now behind on my work with nothing to show for it. I'll have a constable or something come by later, and you can just go with them I suppose."

The stranger called after her. "No! Deryn! You can't leave! I'm sorry, but you just can't!"

Alek stepped between them. "Sir, I'm sorry, but you need to leave now. If you don't leave her alone, I'll call the constabulary on you."

The man shook his head frenetically. "You don't understand! You can't leave because you're in danger!"

Deryn paused, curiosity getting the better of her. "What do you mean, danger? This is London, it's not as if the Kaiser's Airforce can simply fly over and drop a bomb on us all!"

The stranger continued shaking his head. "Not that kind of danger. I probably shouldn't have talked to you, but I got carried away…. But there's no time for that."

Alek interrupted him again. "Sir, I'm afraid you are making no sense whatsoever. Now, we will be going. If you try to follow us, I can have you put behind bars."

The mysterious man was quite insistent now. "You can't leave! Staying with me is your only option, now that I've talked to you. If you try to leave, you'll be dead within 24 hours."

Alek narrowed his eyes at the man. "Was that a threat?"

"No! I'm not the one who's after you!"

Deryn stepped into the conversation. "This is a bit hard to swallow, coming from someone I've never met, and who seems to have utterly lost their mind. Who is after us, then?"

The strange man froze suddenly. He pointed at something behind Alek and Deryn.

"They are."


	3. Chapter 3

Deryn spun around, her heart suddenly racing. Despite the fact that this stranger was obviously insane, she still felt momentarily frightened by his warning.

Until she saw what was behind her. She almost laughed out loud. "Really?" she asked the odd man. "You're scared of a couple of scruffs?"

There was nothing but a pair of shuffling tramps, dressed in rags, ratty derby hats, and shoes full of holes. They were hunched and grimy, slowly rifling through a bin. Under any other circumstances, Deryn would have felt sorry for the poor sods, but here, they made her want to laugh.

"You're really scared of those tramps? What's next, the pigeons coming to attack?" She would have continued on, but the stranger interrupted her.

"Don't be fooled by their appearance! It's just their camouflage programming. They're designed to blend in with their environment when they aren't in combat." The man was quite intent on keeping up his ridiculous act.

Deryn snorted. "Well, I guess I was right. Alek, can you go and call a constable? I'll keep this bum-rag here. I don't know how he got that metal thingy of his, but we have to show it to someone who'll know what to do with it."

Alek began heading back down the alleyway, towards the tramps and the main road. But a shout from the man stopped him in his tracks. "No! You mustn't go near them! Don't get within arm's reach!" He was genuinely worried, Deryn saw.

The two tramps were slowly ambling down the alley towards them, looking through the bins. Alek was still standing there, apparently a bit confused.

The stranger ran toward Alek, putting himself between Alek and the scruffs in their ragged coats. "Stop! You don't want anything with these two! They don't know anything! You want me, right?" His voice dropped a bit, suddenly becoming very intimidating. "So why don't you come for me, then?"

The tramps suddenly took on a frightening transformation. They froze, stopping their search through the trash bins. Deliberately, almost mechanically, they turned to face the stranger. They stood as straight as a ramrod, no longer slouching. They cast aside their ragged coats and derby hats. Under them, they were most definitely not street scruffs.

The two… things… stood in a stiff military stance. From their face, two glowing blue lights winked in their eye sockets. They each looked like they'd had some of their limbs replaced with metal prosthetics, and their torsos were covered in a shiny shell of what might have been some kind of body armor.

Deryn had heard about the Clankers being able to replace lost limbs with clunky steam-powered replicas. Of course, Darwinists could just whip up a new limb and graft it on, good as new. But Deryn had never heard of replacing someone's barking eyes!

The stranger noticed their confusion. "You'll probably be wondering what those are. Well, I have to say, I'm not fully sure of that. They're definitely some new kind of Cyberman. Only a partial conversion, I'd reckon. The disguise programming and increased mobility makes me think an advanced model, maybe some kind of infiltrator or commando. But, you know, I could be wrong. I sometimes am, though I like to think not that often."

He probably would have continued his blathering had the metal men not shut him up. One of them stepped forward and began speaking in a voice that almost could have passed for a normal person.

"_Primary target identified. Face match positive. Witnesses identified. Witness face match uploaded to server. Witnesses re-identified by server: Secondary targets."_

The stranger suddenly looked a bit less confident. "No, no, you lot aren't after them. They don't know anything, do they? It's me you're after, isn't that right?"

"_Negative. Current operating procedure allows for no witnesses. Witnesses must be apprehended and converted."_

The strange man backed away, speaking to Alek and Deryn. "Ah. This appears to be one of those times after all. It looks like I was indeed wrong." He flashed them a grin, still backing towards them. "And now comes the best part of all this."

Deryn, still a bit flustered by these sudden events, managed to ask "And what would the bloody best part be?"

The strange man reached them and grabbed Alek and Deryn's hands. "We start running."

He began to run down the alley, but didn't make it far, given the fact neither Alek nor Deryn had started running with him. They both began to talk at the same moment.

Alek: "Excuse me, but while this all sounds very exciting and improbable, I would like to have a quick explanation before we go running off. Especially since I still don't trust you, and I have no idea where we are running _to, _and I was just dragged halfway across London for whatever reason Deryn has-

Deryn: "Hold on one bloody sodding minute, will you? You just led me on a merry chase round London for no reason at all, and I don't think you should just damn well expect me to follow you like a sheep follows a mucky shepherd-"

Alek: "-and yes, while those men over there do seem very frightening, despite their words to the contrary they've done us no harm. It just all sounds very fishy."

Deryn: "-and who in blazes do you even think you are? It's not like I've anything but your word to go on, and really, stuck-up and noble as he is, Alek's right, this whole affair just doesn't really-"

They might have continued on in unison, had the tramps(?) not made a move. In perfect synchronization, they began to charge them. They had a stiff, ungainly gait, like they weren't used to running, but they both managed to attain a fair speed, quickly closing the distance between them and the three people standing down the alleyway.

Deryn quickly decided that maybe she should go along with the stranger.

Apparently Alek was in agreement.

The three of them hurried down the alley, and made into the door the man had unlocked with his device. He slammed the door behind them and began to use his little buzzing stick on the door, apparently locking it.

As he worked, he talked. "Alrighty then. Standard introduction, I expect. I'm the Doctor. This is my sonic screwdriver. I'm a time traveler. I'm also 900 years old and have two hearts. That about sums it up, I think. Any questions?" He looked at the two of them pleasantly.

"Yes-" began Deryn, but he cut her off.

"Well, sorry, but there isn't any time for that. We can chat all you want when we get to the TARDIS. All right, that should hold them for a good ten minutes. Let's get going." And they were off.

Deryn and Alek followed, though Deryn was now even less sure of the strange man's mental state. Behind them, the door thudded with the impact of armored fists. The sound echoed in the room.

Deryn looked about, realizing she hadn't stopped to even glance at the building. It was an old warehouse, mostly empty but for a few rotted crates of fabrics. She called ahead to the stranger- no, the Doctor.

"Why are we here? I thought we were headed for that Tordis thing!"

Without looking back the Doctor answered her. "It's pronounced TARDIS, Deryn! And as for why we are here, I'm looking for a bit of hardware. If we crack it, it should give us some useful tidbits. Now, help me search for it!"

Alek asked what she was about to say herself. "Search for what exactly?"

"It'll be hidden by a perception filter. Look for things you can't look at!"

Alek just looked at Deryn with an expression that mirrored Deryn's exasperation. "Look for something we can't look at?"

Deryn just shook her head. This was quite quickly becoming one of the most barking strange times of her life. This… Doctor… well, she still wasn't sure whether he was telling the truth or just some mad rotter who couldn't tell his grandma from his hat stand.

"Never mind! Found it myself!" announced the Doctor. He looked very pleased with himself. "Now just head this way, Deryn-plus-one."

"I have a name." mumbled Alek.

"What's that? Don't mumble, it's not suitable for polite company."

As he spoke, he waved his magic wand over a perfectly normal-looking wall. The wall was so normal and dull, Deryn couldn't help but ignore it. But as he worked, there was a shimmering in the air and the wall simply melted away. In its place was a large metal door, which swung open with a hiss of escaping pressure. It looked like something from a Clanker vessel, all metal and rivets and wasteful excess.

The three of them moved forward, looking into the doorway. Beyond it, it was certainly not a London warehouse. The walls had been reinforced with sheets of shiny metal and small electric lights glowed on the ceiling.

Deryn frowned. This seemed like a Clanker installation. Cold and sterile, all lifeless metal. When people said Clankers were unnatural, they were speaking the truth. This place ignored the laws of the natural world.

Wordlessly, they all filed into the metal hidey-hole. For once, the newcomer was silent, just peering around with his metal wand at the ready.

The hallway wasn't very long, it soon opened out into a small room full of machinery. Deryn hugged herself. The air was barking cold in here!

The room's most notable features were the metal coffin-like pods standing upright against the walls. They were big enough to hold a full-grown man, and had a circular glass window at face height. Two were empty. The other two each had a man inside of them.

As the Doctor rifled through the room, Deryn had a closer look. The men inside had false eyes like the tramps from the alley. One had part of the skin on his face replaced with metal. Each of them had been partially rebuilt out of steel. Deryn shivered. This was just wrong. Not even the machine-minded Clankers would ever consider turning a living human into some kind of half-alive mockery of a person. She thought again of the tramps in the alley, just a few minutes ago, and how they had spoken with grating, emotionless voices. She shivered again. This place gave her a bad case of the willies.

The Doctor gave a cry of delight. "Ah, here it is! Knew it couldn't be hidden too well, those Cybermen don't have much creativity, beyond the whole planning-to-conquer-the-world thing." In his hand he held a greenish rectangle, patterned with lines of metal.

Alek's looked at it curiously. Deryn had never managed to make him get over his love of machines. "But what is it, Herr Doctor?"

_Herr Doctor? _Deryn thought. _All this machinery really brings out the Clanker in him. _

"That's a good question, Alex." said the Doctor. Before Alek could correct him he went on. "This is the black box for this little installation. Should something happen to this hidey-hole, all the information retrieved by the Cybermen here would be copied onto this little piece of hardware. Right now nothing's recorded on here because nothing's happened to this place. But the circuit is designed to be located and retrieved after an emergency, so the TARDIS should be able to trace the emergency locator signal to the main Cyberman base of operations."

Alek blinked.

The Doctor sighed. "This can lead us to the current Cyberman command center."

Deryn just nodded, pretending to follow along.

"But we should probably get going soon. Those thugs outside will be getting in soon. We can take a different exit and hurry back to the TARDIS." announced the Doctor.

Deryn and Alek were in agreement. Neither of them wanted to wait around for the Cybermen, or whatever they were called, to break down the door and 'convert' them.

"Alright then! Let's be off now, because, and don't panic when I say this, those Cybermen in the pods behind you appear to be waking up."

They were off without any further prompting.


	4. Chapter 4

Deryn was really tired of running.

She didn't think she'd ever done so much running in her life. Even when she was in active duty aboard the _Leviathan,_ she hadn't had to run this much. The ship may have been large for an airbeast, but at least it was still a fairly small place.

Right now she was still running, along with Alek and the mad bloke who called himself the Doctor. The Doctor was still running a good pace, but Alek and Deryn were lagging behind. With some concern, Deryn saw that Alek was turning purple in the face. _Though I probably don't look too bloody great myself._

In her mind, she thought of all the blasted bloody running she'd had to do today. Running out of the Zoological Society building. Running after the Doctor for miles through the streets of London. Running from the men in the alley. Running into the warehouse. Running out of the warehouse. And now they had been running for the better part of an hour, following the Doctor.

"Do you even know where we're going? And how are you still running so fast?" Deryn heard Alek cry out nex to her.

"Practice! Running is an activity you should go about every day! It's good for the hearts! And as for where we're headed, we're going back to the TARDIS of course!"

"Isn't the TARDIS back at the Zoological Society building?" Deryn asked.

"Why, yes! Is there a problem?" The Doctor flashed a smile back at her.

"The Zoological Society building is back near Trafalgar Square! We've been running in the opposite bloody direction!" Deryn's concern for this man's mental health increased every minute.

The Doctor paused. "Why, I do believe… yes, I think it was back that way! We'll have to turn around! If we maintain a brisk pace, we should be back within an hour!"

In unison, a great groan rose from Alek and Deryn.

"Here we are!"

_Oh thank God. _Thought Deryn, slumping against one of the alley walls. Alek simply collapsed, crumpling like a rag doll. The Doctor grinned like the madman Deryn thought he was.

"Whew! That was exhilarating! But don't worry, once we get inside the TARDIS, I'll brew some tea and we can actually talk face to face."

"You must be joking." Alek looked at the blue box in front of them. "That's a telephone box."

"Yes, it is. However, it's also the most advanced vessel in the universe, so it just goes to show you should never judge something by how it looks." The Doctor sighed. "Especially not the TARDIS, she can get very temperamental."

Deryn would have asked him how the hell a police box could be temperamental, but her lungs were still burning desperately. The Doctor was fumbling around with a key, trying to open the door to the box. He seemed to be having a rough time of it.

"Oh, don't give me that!" he said, apparently to the box. "They don't mean to be rude, they're just… inexperienced." He fumbled around some more, but apparently the box was satisfied, because Deryn heard the lock click, and the double doors swung open.

"Alright, come on in!" the Doctor called cheerily, stepping into his box.

"Absolute madman." Alek remarked to Deryn. But as soon as he stepped into view of the inside of the box, his jaw went slack. He was apparently speechless, though he made a sound that Deryn was able to interpret as shocked and amazed.

"What is it, you ninny?" she managed to stand up, though her legs still complained from their frantic run through the city. _Sitting at a desk all day has certainly gotten me out of shape, _she thought in a corner of her brain.

But when saw the inside of the TARDIS, she too was struck speechless. The sheer strangeness of it, how it stood in defiance of every law of nature, struck her and rendered her mute for a full minute.

"It's… bigger-"

"-On the inside, yes, yes. Time Lord tech, good strong stuff. Nothing like it, at least when you're looking for a vessel. The closest you can get to a TARDIS would be something from the Terminus Shipyards in Orion Central, and most of their stuff is copied from old TARDIS components they found."

Alek had gotten over most of the shock and was looking all around. His Clanker side was going dewey-eyed over all the strange technology around him.

"Doctor, how does it all work? It's clearly far beyond anything I could even imagine."

The Doctor tapped a finger on the glowing cylinder in the center of the TARDIS console.

"This, Allen-"

"Alek."

"-Alex, is the Heart of the TARDIS. It allows her to travel the Time Vortex, and while it takes a few moments for us, the TARDIS exterior dematerializes, and instantly rematerializes somewhere else. As for being bigger inside, the Heart of the TARDIS has enough raw energy to maintain the interior spatially, temporally, and dimensionally separate from the exterior. So right now, standing here, you're the first person from your particular version of Earth to have travelled to another dimension."

Deryn's eyes had begun to glaze over, but something occurred to her.

"What exactly do you mean by our 'particular version of Earth'? Are you trying to insinuate there are others?"

"Well, yes and no. This Earth is from an alternate timeline, meaning something happened at some point in time that drastically altered the course of your history. A fixed point was changed. If what I hear from you is correct, Charles Darwin discovered the existence of DNA, and some way to manipulate it. As a result, the British Empire possesses far greater technology than it really has any right to. But, I'm getting off track. Funnily, that seems to happen very often. Can't imagine why. But, anyway, the problem here is that it's not supposed to be possible to cross between the timelines. Of course, I've done it before. But it ends up causing all kinds of troubles and it's usually not very healthy for your time travel vessel. And, so, since I ended up here, it appears I'm stuck here for a while."

Alek was hanging on the Doctor's every word. "So how _did _you end up here, Herr Doctor?"

_Herr Doctor again. Here I was thinking I trained him to be a proper Englishman, and a man in a fancy box shows up and he goes all Clanker-ese again. _Deryn thought to herself.

"Here's where the Cybermen come into this. I was tracking down a new Cyberman vessel, one I heard about from an old friend named Jack. It's a shame that that unpleasant Dorium Maldovar ended up stealing his vortex manipulator and giving him to the Headless Monks. Though in a way, him getting decapitated was almost fortunate… it was lucky for me that his head ended up in New New York, else I might have been stuck down in the Motorway for years…"

Deryn coughed. "You were telling us about the Cybermen. Though I'm sure that your friend Jack is a fascinating person.

"Oh, he certainly is… or was…. But yes, you were right. Cybermen. I do seem to be getting off topic quite a lot today, I apologize. It must just be after the bumpy ride I had on the way here-"

Deryn coughed and tapped her foot.

"Ah hah, yes. Cybermen. Cybermen, Cybermen, Cybermen. I was tracking down a new Cyberman vessel Jack had warned me about. Apparently it was much more advanced than any other Cybership previously encountered, based off of salvaged Time Lord tech, along with the technology of other advanced races. It was- is- massive, and possesses temporal/spatial travel abilities that rival that of a TARDIS. It's advanced enough to turn an entire planet to a Cyberman factory world, and I decided should be the one to look into it."

"And? What did you find?"

"It's better than a TARDIS. Jack said it was equal to a TARDIS, but in reality that ship is more deadly than the most advanced combat TARDIS used in the Time War. And it's here, on this Earth."

"But I thought you said it's hard to travel to other timelines?"

"It is. It's impossible for any other ship and bloody difficult for Sexy. But the Cyberman vessel can slip through the Void like a hot knife through butter. It may not be noticeable yet, but it's here. Earlier today you two saw firsthand those Cyberman infiltrators. You can be sure that they'll be planning something. The Cybermen will wipe out resistance before anyone knows they're under attack."

"And, since you're the brilliant one here, how do we stop that from happening?"

"Luckily I was able to locate the Cybership with that black box we pocketed. It's near Berlin, deep in German territory. We'll need a plan to take it out. A cunning plan. A sneaky, devious plan, one so sneaky and devious the Cybermen won't even know they're under attack. Their ship will have a weakness, they always do. We'll have to take advantage of that weakness and destroy that ship. With the ship gone, the Cyberman will lack the resources and command structure to take over the planet."

"Brilliant! What's the plan?" Alek leaned forward, excitement clear on his face.

"Oh, well, I don't know yet. I was just expressing the fact that we need a plan. Don't worry, it'll be a totally brilliant plan once I get the details down. They'll never know what hit them!"

_Definitely a madman. _Deryn thought.


End file.
